Sectors struck by the latest crisis

Although unemployment is nowhere near as high as it was during the depths of the last recession the sheer pace at which jobs are being shed is frightening.

A record 225,000 people were laid off in the last quarter of last year.

London's unemployment tally has risen to around 300,000, still well below the half million seen in 1992 but is expected to soar this year.

Graduates face an increasingly bleak future, particularly if they are looking for highly paid London-based jobs.

According to researchers High Flyers, investment banking graduate recruitment is down almost 40 per cent on 2007 and media jobs by a third.

But there are more opportunities in the public sector where recruitment is up by half — for the time being.

Property

London prices fell by around 20 per cent last year, faster even than in the early Nineties.

The number of deals has collapsed by half, making it an even tougher recession than last time for estate agents.

Only in the last few days have there been tentative signs of a revival in viewings and offers after the unprecedented cuts in interest rates of recent months.

Most analysts expect prices to fall again this year — perhaps by another 10 per cent — before hitting bottom next year at around two thirds of the summer 2007 peak.

The toll of reposessesions has not yet reached the levels of the early Nineties but as owners increasingly fall into negative equity and lose their jobs the total is bound to rise.

Property experts believe the national tally will reach 75,000 this year, matching the 1992 record.

The High Street

The signs are ominous — the early Nineties were characterised by London's high streets pock-marked with empty boarded-up premises.

The pattern is beginning to repeat itself. A number of well-known London retailers, ranging from Chelsea's General Trading Company to Woolworths, have already gone down and consumer confidence has hit rock bottom.

Every high street in the capital now has its sad collection of abandoned shops with huge piles of unopened post building up inside.

However, there are bright spots. Cheaper supermarkets, particularly Morrisons, are doing well as shoppers seek to cut their household bills. Cobblers and other repair shops are thriving in the new make do and mend culture.

Also, the West End still continues to thrive thanks to the ever-plummeting pound.

Lesiure

Central London "destination" restaurants are still managing to cope, largely thanks to the stream of tourists who have been lured into visiting this country by the weakness of sterling.

But the closures have begun.

Long-established dining rooms such as Snow's on the Green and the Brackenbury, both in west London, have already gone.

Top restaurateurs have already noticed drastic cutting back in spending on wine, where they used to enjoy their biggest profit margins.

They are responding with cheaper set menus, shorter opening hours, and any promotions they can think of to encourage diners out of their homes.

Takings are expected to be at least 20 per cent down this year.

Cinema — considered an inexpensive form of entertainment when times are tough — is still thriving, however, and the £15 million of advance sales for the musical Oliver! at Drury Lane's Theatre Royal, suggest that Theatreland is not yet on its knees.

The City

This recession has its origins in the great City bubble.

The Square Mile's explosion was particularly spectacular as Lehman Brothers collapsed last September after 158 years, leaving the indelible image of ashen-faced "masters of the universe" emerging from their offices clutching boxes of possessions.

Since then, tens of thousands of jobs have vanished and those formerly eye-watering bonuses which bankers used to pocket as a matter of course are down by two-thirds or more for the lucky survivors. The financial boom of the past five years was even headier than in the Eighties and the crash will be even more painful this time than it was in the last recession.

Then, the City licked its wounds, reinvented itself and moved on to the biggest bonus-fest of all time.